I'm having trouble with windlace wrinkling on the tight corner around a wrap-around windshield. In the past we have used cloth or leather covered rod and never had a problem with wrinkles, but using vinyl and it wrinkles alot. I have steamed, stretched and cut relief cuts right up to the stitches and it still wrinkles on me. The vinyl is sewn and the sponge rod is not glued to the vinyl, in less sharp bends, stretching and reliefs work great, but this corner won't smooth out. is there something I'm overlooking or is it the nature of the beast?
What did you sew the windlace with? If you didn't use a 3/4" welt foot on your sewing machine, ( assuming 1/2" sponge rod or 5/8" welt foot for 3/8" sponge rod) you will get wrinkles like that. Still, that is a very severe corner, and some wrinkling will probably occur no matter what, but it should be less than what you have there.
I used a welt foot to sew it. maybe I might have to sew a dart like I did in the sharp 90 dgree corner, but was thinking there is something I am overlooking. Maybe a few more pics an someone will notice something I am missing.
I was also thinking that you could staple your windlace up to about 2" away from the corner, and then pulled it across the corner and stapled it down 2" away from the other side of the corner, and then pulled it up and away into the corner that that might work or at least help.
thanks for the advice. I ended up cutting out the stitching completely and stapled just the outer side and steaming and stretching it as I stapled it along the curve, then I did the same to the inner side.
The end result is a whole lot better than what was there, not perfect but ok. . .
thanks
Looks a lot better. I think if you did the same on the straight parts away from the corner, 6 or 8 inches, you could possibly loose the last few wrinkles.
something when you cut you material make sure the stretch goes the long way cut.
you need the stretch to go the right way, as it will stretch one way
might help
I think that looks great! I have the same problem on my '29 REO's sunroof, which was in place when I bought the vehicle. What I'm curious about is, what are you stapling to? Did you install some sort of wood surrounding the opening?
We are getting ready to install a headliner in our strech cab 53 Chevy and when we were doing the finish metal work, we removed the strip that holds the inside rubber windlace.
The entire roof area is covered with 18ga. sheet metal, with insulation in between.
The question is the windlace AND the headliner material?
Do we start over and cover the roof with wood, or something to attach the windlace at the edges, or just contact glue to the metal?
YES this is a very helpful site with great folks, Thanks !!
What type of material is your windlace stapled to. I'am going to be doing my 56 Pontiac very soon and have seen what I took down, but not sure what it is. Doug
The material you staple the windlace to is like a heavy cardboard (about 3/8" thick) that is held in place by metal tabs. If you took it out, you'll need to replace it.
I also had these problems years ago, but learned to cut the vinyl correctly. The stretch needs to go the length of the windlace , plus i did not want to have seams in it So i cut it on the BIAS and it worked great :sweat: Makes for show quality .
For those of you who don't know, cutting welt cord on the bias means cutting the fabric strips at a 45 degree angle. This means using up a huge amount of fabric, or having welts that have a huge number of seams. I'm not sure how you can bias cut anything longer than about 7 feet long without having to seam it.
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